


Dates

by MizJoely



Series: Sherlolly AU Prompts [26]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Parentlock, Sherlolly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-19 23:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5984380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizJoely/pseuds/MizJoely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welovesherlolly said: Sherlolly :3 we’ve been on a few dates and my child just asked me when we’re getting married :3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WeLoveSherlolly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeLoveSherlolly/gifts).



> Soo....I’ve very loosely defined dates for this prompt, hope you enjoy it!

“Mummy? When are you and him getting married?”

Molly stopped short, staring down at her five-year-old daughter. “Sweetie, what are you talking about? Me and who?”

“You an’ Mr. Holmes,” Lizzie replied. They were on their way to the St. Barts’ crèche after she’d been dropped off by Molly’s best friend Mary, which was the only reason Molly could think might have spurred her daughter’s odd question.

“Why would I get married to Mr. Holmes?” she asked.

Lizzie shrugged and stared down at her shoes. “Frankie at school says when mummies aren’t married an’ they go on dates then they get married. An’ you an’ Mr. Holmes have been on lots of dates.” She looked back up at her mother.

Molly glanced quickly down the hall; no one was coming in either direction, so she gently tugged at Lizzie’s hand, pulling her to side as she stooped down so they were at eye-level. “Sweetie,” she said gently, “Mr. Holmes and I haven’t been on any dates. We’re just work colleagues. I explained that to you, right? How he works with Detective Inspector Lestrade and the other police to solve cases?”

Lizzie nodded again. “Yeah, but Mummy, you’ve gone to his flat to help him three times, an’ that’s like a date. I know it is cause you don’t wear your normal clothes when he calls an’ asks you to come over. You get all pink when you talk to him an’ you do that thing with your hair.” Lizzie mimed twirling a lock of hair around her index finger and pursed her lips in a simpering smile.

Molly felt her face getting very pink indeed as she groped for the right way to explain to her daughter that Mr. Holmes wasn’t interested in going on actual dates - with Molly or anyone else, for that matter. She thought briefly about explaining about his ‘special friend’ John Watson, but decided it wouldn’t be fair to tell Lizzie something that was purely speculation on her mother’s part. “Sweetie, Mr. Holmes and I are just...just work colleagues, and that’s all,” she said firmly. “He likes me to help him with experiments sometimes just like I help him and the police with my job. They’re not dates.” Much as she might daydream otherwise.

“Well I wish they were dates cause I know you like him and it makes me sad that Daddy got married to someone and you didn’t yet.”

Molly wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, but before she could come up with the right words, there came the sound of a throat being cleared from directly behind her. She jumped a bit and almost toppled over, stopped only the firm grip of a hand on her arm. She looked up, her face flushing absolutely scarlet as she realized who the hand belonged to: Sherlock Holmes, the very man they’d been discussing. “Sorry,” he said as he released her arm, “but I couldn’t help overhearing. This is your daughter, yes? Elizabeth?”

Lizzie nodded and grinned up at him while Molly continued to gape like a prize codfish. “Yeah, I’m Lizzie, are you Mr. Holmes? You look just the way Mummy says when she talks about you to my Aunt Mary!” Turning back to her mother, she said in a loud whisper, “He’s even wearing the scarf, Mummy! The blue one you like so much!”

It was probably impossible for Molly to get any redder, but at the rate her heart was pumping blood through her system, it might actually start leaking through her pores at any moment. She’d never felt so embarrassed in all her life!

Sherlock was smirking a bit, but his smile turned rather sweet as he joined them by crouching down to Lizzie-height. “Yes, I’m Mr. Holmes, but you can call me Sherlock. Nice to meet you, Lizzie Hooper.” He solemnly shook her hand. Leaning forward a bit, he made a show of glancing around the empty hall before looking back at her. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Lizzie nodded eagerly, then glanced over at her mother and bit her lip. “Only if I can tell Mummy, I’m not s’posed to keep secrets from my Mum.”

He hummed in agreement. “Yes, neither am I. But since Mummy’s right here, she’ll be in on the secret anyway, so that’s sorted.”

“What’s the secret?” Lizzie whispered, her eyes wide and dancing with excitement. Molly felt she really ought to butt in, but since she was right there and Sherlock surely wouldn’t say anything cutting or inappropriate to a small child, she kept her peace. But if he said one thing to upset her Lizzie, he’d find out exactly how fierce she could be!

“When your Mummy comes over to help me with my experiments, it actually is a date, only I’ve never told her so,” he said, still in a stage whisper. He let his left eyelid flicker shut in a quick, cheeky wink. “But now that I know you wouldn’t mind if she got married some day, do you think it would be all right if I asked her on a proper date? And then maybe the three of us could go and get some ice cream sometime?”

Lizzie jumped up and down and squealed, clapping her little hands together excitedly. “Can we Mummy? Can we?”

Molly felt as if she’d been stricken dumb; every time she tried to open her mouth to say something - anything! - nothing came out. Finally she managed a very squeaky, questioning, “O-okay?”

Lizzie tackle-hugged her, nearly knocking the two of them to the floor. “Oh, thank you, Mummy! Thank you!” Then, remembering her manners, she let go her strangehold on her mother’s neck and looked over at Sherlock. “Yes, please, I like ice cream. But not from Charlie’s, they don’t use the right kind of milk and it makes my tummy hurt. So we has to go Lemony’s instead.”

“Lactose intolerance, it does rather limit your choices,” Sherlock said with what sounded like true sympathy. “All right, then, Lemony’s it is. But only after you Mum and I have our first proper date, in case something goes wrong and she decides she doesn’t want to go out with me again, does that sound fair?”

Lizzie pouted while the two grown-ups rose to their feet. “But then I don’t get my ice cream,” she pointed out.

Sherlock grinned. “Fair enough. How about this? We’ll all go for ice cream right now, before Mummy’s shift starts, and then I’ll take her on a date tomorrow night - Mary already said she could babysit, I took the liberty of asking her a few minutes ago - and if all goes well, we’ll celebrate with ice cream again on Saturday.”

“Wait, don’t I get a say in any of this?” Molly demanded, finally finding her tongue. Yes, she’d already agreed to the date - hadn’t she? - but this two-way conversation definitely required input from her. “And what do you mean, you already asked Mary to babysit? How do you know her?”

“You’ve talked about her a number of times when we’ve been in the lab together,” Sherlock replied with a quick eye-roll that she hoped Lizzie didn’t see; her daughter was very quick to emulate actions taken by people she admired, and it was clear she very much admired ‘Mr. Holmes’! “Since I just happened to be outside when she was on her way to the tube station after dropping Miss Elizabeth off,” he nodded at Lizzie, who grinned back up at him, “I introduced myself and asked her if she’d mind babysitting and the rest you know.”

Later Molly would learn that it wasn’t quite as ‘easy-peasy’ as he made it out to be: he’d actually orchestrated the entire thing, loitering out of sight while Molly and Mary chatted, making sure to wait until she and Lizzie had entered the building before approaching Mary, and then insisting she contact DI Lestrade to verify he was who he claimed to be before badgering her into babysitting in spite of the fact that she had a date of her own that night.

But that was later. And much later than that - after many successful dates, a few disagreements, an almost-breakup and more than a few visits to Lemony’s - Molly found herself actually accepting a proposal from the man she’d been silently in love with since the moment she’d first laid eyes on him.

The fact that Lizzie adored him and Mary fell for his just-a-friend-and-flatmate-after all, John Watson, made accepting the proposal that much easier.

 


End file.
